Jaanipäev

Jaanipäev, which is Estonia's big summer holiday, was today. Monday is for bonfires and grilling and parties, much like Fourth of July but bigger. Most Estonians get Monday and Tuesday off work. It's technically "St John's Day", but is more a general summer celebration and is merged with Victory Day, a holiday for remembrance of the Estonian War of Independence following World War One.

Ave and I went to Otepää Friday afternoon with Arx and Olja. The usual great food and relaxing countryside over the weekend. Ave made wonderful chicken fajitas and I made pretty good refried beans and guacamole on Saturday to share some mexican cuisine with the Estonians. They seemed to enjoy, but I'm not sure they'll be making these recipes in our absence.

On Monday I played soccer in the rain with Argo and some of his friends. It rained most of the time over the long weekend. Apparently, in the past 15 years or so they've only had a couple dry Jaanipäevs. But dry or wet, I'm not real good at soccer. Afterwards we went back home and Arx made me partake of the sauna, another thing I'm not real good at at. But I survived the heat (110 degrees celsius or 230 fahrenheit) for about 10 minutes which was about as long as Argo stayed, though he went back in later.

Then grilling all evening and lots of eating! It doesn't really start to get dark until about 11:30 (and even then it's just sort of dusky until the sun rises again at about 3am) so we could grill till late at night. Most of Ave's extended family was there, and it was nice to see them all.

Oh, and Thursday before we left we went to a "walking play". Not sure what else to call it; it was sort of like a thespian pub crawl except no pubs. Just outdoor areas and the Patarei prison. This is a very old, now abandonded, prison was as location in much of the movie "Stalker" by Tarkovsky, which is one of my favorite movies. Pics here.

Estonian Cuisine

We haven't quite filled our cupboards and fridge yet (even though they're rather small), but we have been shopping for one or two meals at at time so far. We've made sushi twice: salmon, cucumber, and avocado so far. Delicious, fun, and pretty quick. I've suggested to Ave we try making a different sushi once a week.

Eel is popular here in Estonia, so maybe we can do eel next time. Ave's mom gave her an eel to bring back with us for dinner. I like the taste of eel, but I must admit I don't like having a giant black eel sitting in our fridge.

No celery salt to be found so far in Estonia.

Permits nd paperwork

We submitted my paperwork for work and residency permits yesterday. Everything seemed to go just fine. Ave had everything organized and ready to go, so the lady at the desk appeared pleased by our preparedness. The official line is that it can take up to three months, but we're pretty confident it will be less.

My car has been loaded on to the MSC Diego. Diego will have to drop Kiisu off with another smaller ship, and then it's off to Tallinn. Looks like early July we'll have our car and our stuff.

I never mentioned that we went to an Estonian soccer game a week ago or so. Estonia beat Faroe Islands. It was a lot of fun. They don't play again in Estonia until August though, I think.

An honorary russian for the day

Chrissie was indeed a cute and smart little girl. Pusta Pusta, Pusta Capusta! She taught me this was Russian for "empty, empty, empty hen." It means nothing but is fun to yell.

I would also point out that Olja's family thought I would make a good Russian, as I knocked down vodka almost as handily as O's father while remaining more-or-less coherent.

By the way, our first batch of pics are here.

How I begged for a nickname and how nuffle found an admirer

So for A and O this was the first real weekend of summer and they agreed to take us along to O's sister's summer cottage out in the countryside. It was to be a grilling/birthday party with O's sister, brother-in-law, niece, mother and father. And it was, but with Russian influence. Three different languages were spoken to include all parties and four different types of alcohol drunk to include all tastes. Birthday boy was toasted as well as Jackie Chan and senator Obama. Everyone had a jolly good time.

Now back to my story. In my eagerness to prove myself better Russian speaker then, let's say my brother, I asked for a salad bowl in Russian. I wanted a "moshka" and when that didn't provide any desired results then a "moska". Only when I gave up and asked O to translate ("miska" was the word I had needed) did I realize that I had demanded a mouse. A word that I knew (and reminded myself to avoid in situations like this) at least a month ago when I had practiced for the upcoming move. The funny thing is, I've been called mouse before, Mousy, to be more precise. And that in a class by an older gentleman who couldn't memorize my name. I wonder why he picked that name... ;)

Now, let's call O's niece Chrissy. She is four years old, a cute and smart girl. She can count to ten and name several animals and colors in English. She does not understand Estonian, though. You know how nuffle likes children and how he gets along with them. Chrissy and nuffle didn't need any outside help (read: interpretor) to teach each other new words or make the other giggle. Whereas at first Chrissy was a bit shy as any normal kid would be when meeting adults, by the dinner time she chose a seat right next to him and afterwards took him to walks around the yard and climbed to his lap making it clear nuffle was her best buddy at the party.